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1 – 10 of over 1000To examine the major factors affecting patients' perception of cumulative satisfaction and to address the question whether patients in Egypt and Jordan evaluate quality of health…
Abstract
Purpose
To examine the major factors affecting patients' perception of cumulative satisfaction and to address the question whether patients in Egypt and Jordan evaluate quality of health care similarly or differently.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual model including behavioural dimensions of patient‐physician relationships and patient satisfaction has been developed. As the empirical research setting, this study concerns three hospitals in Egypt and Jordan. The survey instrument in a questionnaire form was designed to achieve the research objectives. A total of 48 items (attributes) of the newly developed five quality dimensions were identified to be the most relevant. A total of 224 complete and usable questionnaires were received from the in‐patients.
Findings
Hospital C has above‐average total and dimensional qualities and patients are the most satisfied in accordance with all dimensions of services. Hospitals A and B have under‐average total qualities as the majority of patients are not satisfied with services. Comparing hospitals A and B, in the majority of dimensions (with the exception of Q5), the quality in hospital B is higher than in hospital A. Patients' satisfaction with different service quality dimensions is correlated with their willingness to recommend the hospital to others. A cure to improve the quality for health‐care services can be an application of total relationship management and the 5Qs model together with customer orientation strategy.
Practical implications
The result can be used by the hospitals to reengineer and redesign creatively their quality management processes and the future direction of their more effective health‐care quality strategies.
Originality/value
In this research a study is described involving a new instrument and a new method which assure a reasonable level of relevance, validity and reliability, while being explicitly change‐oriented. This study argues that a patient's satisfaction is a cumulative construct, summing satisfaction with five different qualities (5Qs) of the hospital: quality of object, processes, infrastructure, interaction, and atmosphere.
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Julie Froud, Colin Haslam, Sukhdev Johal and Karel Williams
Explains how and why the household should, and could, be an object of analysis for a new social accounting. It shows that the household has been neglected in national income…
Abstract
Explains how and why the household should, and could, be an object of analysis for a new social accounting. It shows that the household has been neglected in national income accounting, which generally tends to represent it as a black box. It also shows how the data from national income accounting can be reworked to demonstrate the importance of the household at macro and meso levels. The reworking shows that 84 per cent of GDP passes through the household just as, at the meso level, there are important differences between households in how they pool, spend and save income.
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Identifies the relationship between price and the consumer's evaluation of product quality with regard to developing a pricing strategy. Assesses the effects of price changes, and…
Abstract
Identifies the relationship between price and the consumer's evaluation of product quality with regard to developing a pricing strategy. Assesses the effects of price changes, and investigates the influence of advertising on perceived product quality.
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In recent years, investment management education has become increasingly relevant. As a result of this development, it is essential that various role players should be consulted…
Abstract
In recent years, investment management education has become increasingly relevant. As a result of this development, it is essential that various role players should be consulted to ensure that investment management is taught in line with practitioners’ requirements. The South African Qualifications Authority also specifies that educators and practitioners should collaborate to maintain relevance in all fields of education. The importance of various areas in investment management was investigated. This article compares the ranking of these areas in terms of their importance as perceived by academics and practitioners. The study being reported also aimed to determine whether gaps exist between the areas that academics regard to be important and the areas that practitioners regard as such. Areas that are generally regarded to be most important include asset allocation, fundamental analysis and the measurement of risk and return. Areas that are regarded to be least important include arts, antiques and other hard assets; rights and capitalisation issues; and real estate. Areas in need of research include the measurement of risk and return; asset allocation; derivatives; and global markets and instruments. The findings of this study could have a significant impact on the provision of relevant training for South African investment specialists.
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Dahlia Robinson, Thomas Smith, James Devin Whitworth and Yiyang Zhang
This study aims to investigate whether accounting-related litigation is associated with a break in the client’s earnings string and the auditor’s response to a break in the…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to investigate whether accounting-related litigation is associated with a break in the client’s earnings string and the auditor’s response to a break in the earnings string.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors use regression models on a sample of publicly-traded USA companies with earnings strings.
Findings
The authors find that clients’ earnings string breaks are associated with increased accounting litigation risk and audit fees. The results are more prevalent for larger breaks.
Research limitations/implications
The findings suggest auditors anticipate string breaks by clients which implies that audit fee research should consider earnings string characteristics in the fee models.
Practical implications
The auditor’s access to private information allows them to anticipate string breaks and potential increase in litigation risk.
Originality/value
An earnings string break represents a convergence of concerns highly relevant to the auditor: more users relying on the financial statements with greater expectations, increased likelihood of losses to those users, an environment where the likelihood of misstatement may increase, and explicitly stated professional responsibilities in response to the latter. Despite that, and a rich earnings string literature, prior studies have not directly examined auditors’ response to a client’s string break.
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Geetha Rani Prakasam, Mukesh Mukesh and Gopinathan R.
Enrolling in an academic discipline or selecting the college major choice is a dynamic process. Very few studies examine this aspect in India. This paper makes a humble attempt to…
Abstract
Purpose
Enrolling in an academic discipline or selecting the college major choice is a dynamic process. Very few studies examine this aspect in India. This paper makes a humble attempt to fill this gap using NSSO 71st round data on social consumption on education. The purpose of this paper is to use multinomial regression model to study the different factors that influence course choice in higher education. The different factors (given the availability of information) considered relate to ability, gender, cost of higher education, socio-economic and geographical location. The results indicate that gender polarization is apparent between humanities and engineering. The predicated probabilities bring out the dichotomy between the choice of courses and levels of living expressed through consumption expenditures in terms of professional and non-professional courses. Predicted probabilities of course choices bring in a clear distinction between south and west regions preferring engineering and other professional courses, whereas north, east and NES prefer humanities.
Design/methodology/approach
The present paper follows the same approach as that of Turner and Bowen (1999). The Multinomial regression is specified as
Findings
The results indicate that gender polarization is apparent between humanities and engineering. The predicated probabilities bring out the dichotomy between the choice of courses and levels of living expressed through consumption expenditures in terms of professional and non-professional courses. Predicted probabilities of course choices bring in a clear distinction between south and west regions preferring engineering and other professional courses, whereas north, east and NES prefer humanities.
Research limitations/implications
Predicted probabilities of course choices bring in a clear distinction between south and west regions preferring engineering and other professional courses, whereas north, east and NES prefer humanities. This course and regional imbalance need to be worked with multi-pronged strategies of providing both access to education and employment opportunities in other states. But the predicted probabilities of medicine and science remain similar across the board. Very few research studies on the determinants of field choice in higher education prevail in India. Research studies on returns to education by field or course choices hardly exist in India. These evidences are particularly important to know which course choices can support student loans, which can be the future area of work.
Practical implications
The research evidence is particularly important to know which course choices can support student loans, which can be the future area of work, as well as how to address the gender bias in the course choices.
Social implications
The paper has social implications in terms of giving insights into the course choices of students. These findings bring in implications for practice in their ability to predict the demand for course choices and their share of demand, not only in the labor market but also across regions. India has 36 states/UTs and each state/UT has a huge population size and large geographical areas. The choice of course has state-specific influence because of nature of state economy, society, culture and inherent education systems. Further, within the states, rural and urban variation has also a serious influence on the choice of courses.
Originality/value
The present study is a value addition on three counts. First, the choice of courses includes the recent trends in the preference over market-oriented/technical courses such as medicine, engineering and other professional courses (chartered accountancy and similar courses, courses from Industrial Training Institute, recognized vocational training institute, etc.). The choice of market-oriented courses has been examined in relation to the choice of conventional subjects. Second, the socio-economic background of students plays a significant role in the choice of courses. Third, the present paper uses the latest data on Social Consumption on Education.
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Vighneswara Swamy and Munusamy Dharani
The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the investor attention using the Google search volume index (GSVI) can be used to forecast stock returns. The authors also find…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether the investor attention using the Google search volume index (GSVI) can be used to forecast stock returns. The authors also find the answer to whether the “price pressure hypothesis” would hold true for the Indian stock market.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors employ a more recent fully balanced panel data for the period from July 2012 to Jun 2017 (260 weeks) of observations for companies of NIFTY 50 of the National Stock Exchange in the Indian stock market. The authors are motivated by Tetlock (2007) and Bijl et al. (2016) to employ regression approach of econometric estimation.
Findings
The authors find that high Google search volumes lead to positive returns. More precisely, the high Google search volumes predict positive and significant returns in the subsequent fourth and fifth weeks. The GSVI performs as an useful predictor of the direction as well as the magnitude of the excess returns. The higher quantiles of the GSVI have corresponding higher excess returns. The authors notice that the domestic investor searches are correlated with higher excess returns than the worldwide investor searches. The findings imply that the signals from the search volume data could be of help in the construction of profitable trading strategies.
Originality/value
To the best of the authors knowledge, no paper has examined the relationship between Google search intensity and stock-trading behavior in the Indian stock market. The authors use a more recent data for the period from 2012 to 2017 to investigate whether search query data on company names can be used to predict weekly stock returns for individual firms. This study complements the prior studies by investigating the relationship between search intensity and stock-trading behavior in the Indian stock market.
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Zhen Huang and Simon Gao
The purpose of this study is to examine the usefulness of derivative disclosures from the perspective of Chinese institutional investors in relation to their investment…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this study is to examine the usefulness of derivative disclosures from the perspective of Chinese institutional investors in relation to their investment decision-making.
Design/methodology/approach
This study uses semi-structured interviews with 21 institutional investors based in China including 10 funds managers and 11 professional analysts.
Findings
This study finds that the information on the use of derivatives disclosed by listed companies in China is generally perceived to be useful to Chinese institutional investors (e.g. funds managers and professional analysts) in facilitating their investment decisions, although such information is generally thought to be less significant compared to other fundamental financial information such as assets, liabilities and profits/losses. It also finds that the current provisions of derivatives-related information by Chinese listed companies are largely unsatisfied primarily because of insufficient information and the lack of timely disclosures. Furthermore, it finds that the accounting and reporting policies currently imposed in China appear to be little understood by Chinese investors.
Research limitations/implications
This study has its own limitations due to the approach of interviews with a relatively small sample from only two investment firms in China.
Practical implications
The findings from the study provide a number of policy implications for derivatives regulators and accounting standards setters.
Originality/value
This study is the first study of its kind to investigate the perceptions of Chinese institutional investors on the usefulness of derivatives reporting and disclosures with the use of interview research method.
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Wolfgang Scholl, Christine König, Bertolt Meyer and Peter Heisig
The field of knowledge management (KM) is highly estimated in research and practice but at the same time relatively diffuse and scattered into diverging concepts, perspectives and…
Abstract
The field of knowledge management (KM) is highly estimated in research and practice but at the same time relatively diffuse and scattered into diverging concepts, perspectives and disciplines. On that background, it was the aim of this delphi study to give more structure to the field of KM and to get an outlook on worthwhile developments for the next ten years. International experts of KM from natural/technical and social/business sciences as well as practicians of KM with a similar background were asked some basic questions onto the future of KM in two rounds. According to the experts, the future of knowledge management lies in a better integration into the common business processes, a concentration on the human‐organization‐interface and a better match of IT‐aspects to human factors whereas IT‐aspects rank low on this agenda. There are no broadly agreed theoretical approaches though something can be gained from the related organizational learning field; in general much more interdisciplinary and empirical research is needed. There are also almost no broadly agreed practical approaches besides communities of practice.
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Zdzisława Elżbieta Niemczewska
The purpose is to show the results of research on sociocultural impact – as one of the pillars of sustainable local development which can be stimulated among others by immovable…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose is to show the results of research on sociocultural impact – as one of the pillars of sustainable local development which can be stimulated among others by immovable cultural heritage. The research concerned two groups of respondents: the local community, which does not directly use heritage re-adopted to commercial functions and the community using the heritage in a direct way.
Design/methodology/approach
Surveys and in-depth interviews were used for the study. Two groups of respondents were surveyed: direct users of immovable re-adopted heritage who have the possibility to use it directly by buying services offered in the studied heritage and the local community representatives for which access to the re-adopted heritage is limited.
Findings
In the case of heritage re-adopted to commercial functions, there are differences in sociocultural impact. The very presence of heritage and only awareness of its existence in a given area is not enough for creating a sociocultural function by it in some aspects. Such heritage does not use its potential fully.
Practical implications
Results of the study may be taken into account by some stakeholders in the case of giving heritage resources contemporary functions especially commercial ones (owners of re-used cultural heritage resources, representatives of local authorities as well as entities responsible for the protection, appropriate use of cultural heritage resources and decision-making processes) to eliminate negative or insufficient effects in creating the sociocultural function of heritage in sustainable local development.
Social implications
Suggested actions undertaken on the basis of this research can increase the impact of immovable cultural heritage adapted for commercial purposes on a larger range of beneficiaries especially the local community. Hence, the extent of such heritage's impact on the sociocultural pillar of sustainable development would increase.
Originality/value
So far, studies on the differences in the sociocultural impact of immovable cultural heritage adapted to commercial, contemporary functions on direct users and no-direct users have not been conducted. Results obtained by this study supplement a certain gap regarding the sociocultural impact of heritage resources on this two groups of stakeholders: groups that have direct access to the heritage resource and groups that have no access to them or this access is limited.
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